LAND COVER / LAND USE CHANGE RESEARCH IN THE PETÉN DISTRICT, GUATEMALA

This study addresses issues in monitoring land cover and land use change in the Guatemalan department of El Petén. Together with adjacent forests in Mexico and Belize, the region known as La Selva Maya represents the largest contiguous tract of tropical moist forest remaining in Central America. To protect the forest, it's biological diversity, and it's cultural heritage, the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR) was created by Guatemalan congressional decree in 1990.

Given the importance of land cover and land use change data in conservation planning, Sader and colleagues (Sader et al., 1994; Sader et al., 1997; Sader 1999; and Sader et al., In Press) have monitored over ten years of deforestation in the MBR via time series satellite image analysis. The University of Maine, the University of Delaware, Conservation International (CI), and NASA – Marshall Space Flight Center, have engaged in a cooperative research project supported by the NASA Land Cover / Land Use Change (LCLUC) Science Program, to study land use change dynamics in the MBR.

This research has provided regularly updated forest change maps for the MBR, a key component of Conservation International’s forest monitoring and evaluation program. Land cover and land use change analysis has included the identification and spatial distribution of second growth vegetation, the development of a 20+ year forest conversion history database, and the collection and analysis of house-hold level information to address the socio-economic context for land use change in four rural communities.

 

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